Space Fairy

It's been rattling around my head recently that Discworld is almost anti-whimsy, and I mean that in a good way.

Whimsy, as I define it, is when something magical is put in just to wow the reader. A magic thing that doesn't really effect the story, but its fantastical. Pots cleaning themselves? Moving paintings? A fantastical creature used as set dressing? A spell that does something cool but we'll never hear about it again? What do they mean? Why are they there? Doesn't matter, we're moving on.

But Discworld always applies Logic to these things.

e.g. The old idea of all dwarfs having beards? Ha ha, even the women have beards. How silly.

But that means all dwarfs are men. But there are female dwarfs, right? Are they happy being men? What if you gave one the chance not to be a man? Oh, sure, they'd still have the beard, the helmet, the axe, those are cultural, but what if a dwarf wanted to be a woman? How would other dwarfs react? Would there be biting insults? Snide remarks? Jealousy from other female dwarfs trapped in their society? What if the Low King were a woman? What then?

Pratchett always had this tenacity to follow a whimsical idea until it was ground down in its own grim reality. It's like those old conversations about what would really happen if Superman caught you falling from a high building. You'd smash on his arms because you're still hitting something indestructible at terminal velocity. But the comics would never show that.

Pratchett shows that.

Introduces a werewolf? She has a constant identity crisis and feels like a dog sometimes, between human and wolf, and she's discriminated against in places for being undead. A conman running a bank? Forces everyone to realise how useless gold really is in a scathing indictment of economics. Death becomes Santa? But WHY DOES THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL NEED TO DIE? WHY THE UNFAIRNESS IN THE WORLD? WHY?

What can the harvest hope for, if not the care of the Reaper Man?

It's what sets these stories apart from so many others. Magic is never the solution, reality is usually the solution. And little is introduced without Pratchett delving the idea to its depths, sooner or later.

--Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you do not decide which discworld book you're going to read first, the universe does. It's whichever one accidentally makes its way into your immediate vicinity, whichever one is the only one on the shelf at the library when you were actually looking for something else. It will find you when it's Time, it has something to do with wossname... quantum

Discworld Heritage Post

Reading a Terry Pratchett book is literally just: Here's a funny little joke Here's something that you can tell is a joke but don't get and will only figure out five years later Here's a surprisingly cool fantasy concept Here's a unique and well written simile Here's a lil guy Here's something that has aged depressingly well into the modern day Here's something that has aged remarkably queer into the modern day Here's a character that you can barely understand what he's saying Here is the most terrifying and deeply disturbing concept you have ever heard, casually mentioned Here is the dumbest fucking pun you've ever heard but in the best way Here is a quote so profound that it makes you view morality and the world in a different way Here is a plot twist that you can't tell if it's genius or stupid Congratulations! You've finished the book! It has fundamentally changed you as a person and you will never be the same!